Children of the Shade
by Wolfsbane868
Summary: Harry Potter, brother to the boy-who-lived, has been in an orphanage most of his life with his surrogate sister Gemini Lark. When a secret about Gemini comes to light, promises are made and magic intervenes, drastically altering their fate and heralding the rise of an old family long lost in time. Beware, wizards . . . the Shade family has returned.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! So, this is my first fanfiction! Hopefully this won't be like all the other "Harry has a twin, his parents live, he's neglected . . ." stories that are out there. Hopefully.**

**Before we begin . . . I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Anyway, here is Chapter 1 of **_**Children of the Shade. **_**Hope you enjoy.**

"_Lily, take the children, I'll hold them off!"_

The dream always started the same way. It never changed.

_"NO! Not my babies, not my children . . ."_

_ "Depulso!"_

_ A flash of white. The sickening crack of a body slamming into a wall._

He remembered the words, the sounds, some colors as well. But not faces. Never faces.

He was glad for that

_Footsteps, coming closer to him. A low snarl rippled through the air right above him._

_ "No . . . please . . . my children . . ."_

The voice, the pleading one, it was a woman's voice. He knew whose it was.

It was his mother's voice.

_"Crucio!"_

_ Screams, dancing in a curious symphony through the room. Then they were cut off, with heavy breathing taking their place._

_ Silence for a minute. Then soft, almost imperceptible words came from nearby._

_ "Harry . . . Jason . . . I'm sorry."_

He hated this. He hated remembering this.

He hated remembering what he had had. What he had lost.

_"I love you."_

_ Then the Dark Lord spoke._

_ "Avada Kedavra!"_

_ A flash of green. A rippling shield of silver that originated from something - someone - next to him. _

_ Then the colors faded away into blackness._

It wouldn't be dark for long. It never was. This was only half of the dream. Half of the nightmare.

_After a moment, light returned, illuminating a large Victorian-style house. Rain poured from sleet-grey skies. In front of the building, a metal signpost stood. In neat golden letters, it read, 'Emrys Orphanage'._

_ In front of the door, on the orphanage steps, two people stood, a boy no older than three and a young man with messy black hair._

His father.

_ "Dad, don't go. Don't leave me." The boy begged, eyes shimmering with tears._

_ The man gave him a soft smile, running his fingers through his messy black hair. "I'm sorry, Harry." he told him, "But me and Mom need to keep Jason safe. We'd feel better if you were here."_

_ "But why?" Harry asked, tears starting to run from emerald-green eyes, "Why, why do you need to keep him safe? Don't you want me?"_

_ His father shook his head, denying his questions. "Of course we want you!" He said, "But Jason . . . bad people are after him. We need to protect him. The protections we're setting up . . . they'll only work for three magicals. That means we need to leave you here. Where you'll be safe."_

_ He took Harry's hands in his own. "Here. I promise you that we'll send you letters, and birthday presents, and that we'll try to come visit you, and when you're old enough, we'll come and bring you home. Okay?"_

_ Harry looked at him, sniffing. "Promise?"_

_ James Potter smiled. "Promise."_

His father had lied to him.

"Harry. Harry, get up."

The boy in question groaned as he turned over in bed and slowly opened emerald-green eyes. He pawed his dresser for a moment before he found his glasses and put them on.

After a second, the world came into focus and Harry found himself staring into a pair of bright amber eyes. He stared at them for a second, then sighed and leaned back against the bed's backboard.

"What time is it?" he asked, voice a soft murmur.

"Around three in the morning." The girl said, making her way to the side of the bed. In the darkness, Harry could make out the shadow of her face. "You were tossing and turning quite a bit - I could hear you through the door - so I figured you'd want me to wake you up."

"Mm." Harry muttered, "Thanks, Gemini."

"No problem."

There was silence for a moment, the only sounds coming from the creaking of the bed and the soft howl of the wind outside.

"It was that dream again?" Gemini asked, "The one about your parents."

Harry closed his eyes. "Yea."

Gemini shifted on his bed, her black curls whipping around her head for a moment. "When d'you think they'll remember you?"

Harry snorted. "Probably when news of the sorting in Hogwarts comes out. It'll probably be on the front page . . . 'long lost Potter twin comes to Hogwarts', or something like that. If they remember me before then, I'll be surprised."

Gemini raised an eyebrow. "A good or bad surprise?" she asked, sarcasm leaking into her voice.

"Don't know. Don't really want to find out." Harry replied, placing his head on his knees.

"I hate my birthday." He muttered after a minute. Gemini snickered. "Really? I never would've guessed. Even though you told me the same thing when you turned nine last year, and when you turned eight the year before, and when you turned seven the year after that -"

"Alright, alright, I get it." Harry laughed, and for a moment the grim atmosphere in the room lightened. "Still . . . every year it's . . . today's a reminder. Telling me they don't care. That it's Jason's special day, not mine. That I don't matter to them."

"I know," Gemini said, "I know."

Silence pervaded the room.

"You want to sneak down to the basement and work on some potions? We've got some time to kill before breakfast." Gemini suggested.

Harry was still for a moment, then he shrugged.

"Why not?"

* * *

><p>Out of all the places Sirius Black wanted to be, it wasn't here.<p>

He should be at home. Eating breakfast. Heading to work. Possibly squeezing in a visit to James and Lily to give Jason an early 'Happy Birthday' and promise him he'd be by with his present later.

But he wasn't. Because this had come up last night.

If he had it his way, he wouldn't be here at all. If what he had learned was true . . . he didn't even want to know if it was true. It had disturbed him enough when he had learned what she had done, all for her master and the 'pureblood supremacy' when they had first captured her nine years ago. Learning about this . . . it scared him.

If the girl was anything like her mother . . .

He shuddered.

After a moment of attempting and failing to psyche himself up for this, Sirius forced himself to knock on the door of Emrys Orphanage.

* * *

><p>Harry and Gemini - inseparable since the day they had met, when Harry was three and Gemini was two - ran upstairs from the basement after completing a Calming Draught and storing it in a rack full of potion vials.<p>

"We should try to make some more Pepper-Up potions later, Ms. Margaret probably will want some soon . . ." Harry panted.

"Yea, and maybe some . . . some . . ." Gemini trailed off as she reached the door to the kitchen.

"Some what?" Harry asked, peering into the other room. "Oh . . ."

In the middle of the room, speaking to the orphanage director, stood a middle-aged man with curly black hair and a clean shaven face, dressed in typical wizarding attire.

" . . . I'll be back here tomorrow to take her home." he was saying, face laden with discomfort. "That should give her enough time to say her goodbyes -"

"Who's leaving?" Gemini asked, stepping into the room. Her face was blank, a mask with suspicion and distrust clear in it.

Both Harry and Gemini saw the shock flicker across the man's face, followed by fear and a bit of unexplainable hatred. He stuttered for a moment. "Ah . . ."

Ms. Margaret suddenly intervened, stepping into the conversation. "Of course, Mr. Black," She said, giving him a small smile, "I'll have her papers ready for you to sign as well."

"Thank you." The man replied. Not once did his gaze turn away from the children in the doorway.

"You didn't answer the question." Harry said softly, his voice icy cold. Black flinched as if Harry had punched him. He cast his eyes to the ground. "Um - well -"

"Mr. Black is a relative of Gemini." Ms. Margaret announced. "He is here to take guardianship of you. You will be leaving tomorrow."

* * *

><p>She looked so much like her.<p>

That was Sirius's first thought when he saw Gemini. He didn't need to ask her name - he already could see the traces of her mother in her. The girl's mask . . . her mother had worn that exact same mask at Hogwarts for the first two or three years. She had been careful not to make assumptions, been careful to make the right kind of friends and connections. After she knew who was who and what their parentage was, she had ripped the mask off and shown her true face and thoughts to the world.

He hated Gemini's mother.

So when the girl staggered back and her mask cracked and shattered, he couldn't help but feel a false sense of pride rise up in him. Pride that he could crack the girl's emotions open wide, when no one could break her mother's mask. Then revulsion at what he was thinking choked the pride down.

"No." the girl said, shaking her head back and forth wildly, eyes wide with panic, "No, no, no . . ."

The boy next to her said nothing, but the worry on his face was clear. He glared at Sirius, and he recoiled at the fury in the child's acid green eyes. The glasses he wore did nothing to decrease the intensity of the glower.

Now that he thought of it, the boy reminded him of someone. The shoulder-length hair tied back into a small tail was throwing off, as were the square-rimmed glasses, but still . . . the boy looked like - like -

The boy looked away and the thought vanished like dust in the wind.

"I see you need some time to think about this." The caretaker - Ms. Margaret, if he remembered - said. "You have until tomorrow to say goodbye to your friends and then you'll go home with your new family."

As Sirius exchanged small pleasantries with Ms. Margaret, he kept an eye on Gemini, who was still recovering from her shock.

The last thing he heard as he headed out the door was the small voice of Gemini.

"He's not my family. He's not."

In that moment, Sirius knew the truth.

From that moment on, Gemini Lark - a girl who he had hardly known for five minutes - became a mirror image of her mother.

And Sirius Black hated Gemini's mother.

* * *

><p>Gemini spent the entire day denying that she was related to Sirius Black, that she was leaving the orphanage, and she was never going to return and probably wouldn't be able to see Harry again until Hogwarts, and that was two years away.<p>

Harry, in turn, spent the entire day listening to Gemini's denials and silently fuming.

"I can't leave, I won't leave, I - I don't even know him, how, what right does he have-"

"He has the wizarding law on his side and he's apparently a blood relative, he has every right according to law." Harry snapped. They were in his room right now, him sitting at his desk while Gemini paced frantically around the room.

"Well, screw the law! How can he be a blood relative if I don't know him? Why didn't he come get me earlier on, then? Huh?! Why'd he ignore me for the past nine years?!" Gemini raged.

"I don't know, and we aren't going to stop this adoption unless we make a plan and stop panicking."

"I-" Gemini paused. "Wait. We're doing what?"

"Stopping this adoption." Harry said, tapping his desk with a finger. "If he has no documents, then he can't adopt you. Not legally, anyway."

"But - Ms. Margaret has the documents." Gemini responded, bewildered. "How-"

Then she figured out what they were going to do and Gemini stopped mid-sentence.

"Oh." She breathed out. "That's what we're doing."

Harry grinned - a sly smile that would sent many a wizard running for cover.

Several hours later, when it was nearing midnight and the orphanage was asleep, two children - one nine, one just turned ten - were picking the lock to the caretaker's office.

"Hurry up, Harry!" Gemini whispered, shifting her weight from side to side, half expecting someone to appear from around the corner and shout out, "AHA! Got you!"

"I am hurrying." Harry muttered, fiddling with the lockpick in his fingers. "Almost - there!"

The door creaked open, revealing a dark room.

"You have the flashlight?" Harry breathed. Gemini nodded and switched the flashlight on. A beam of pale yellow light illuminated the office, revealing a bookcase and a desk in the corner of the room. Harry tip-toed to the desk and opened a drawer.

"It'll probably be in one of these drawers." He whispered as he went through several drawers. He scanned the names on some files, pulling out his own file as he pawed through them. "Collin . . . Emerson . . . here. Gemini L."

He handed Gemini her folder while taking the flashlight from her. Gemini opened her file and looked through the papers.

"I think this is all of it - we can probably go . . ." Puzzlement rippled through her voice as she pulled a piece of heavy, blank parchment from her file. "What's this?" She asked aloud, showing it to Harry. He shrugged in confusion, his eyes trailing to the dark diamond-shaped figure at the top of the paper. "Don't know. I think that's a blood seal there, though . . ." He pointed to the black diamond. Gemini raised an eyebrow. "You think. Yay, I'm so reassured." She glanced back down at the paper before letting out a huff of air. "Do you have a knife on you?"

Wordlessly, Harry pulled out a pocketknife - ignoring Gemini's response of "Geez, you have everything on you" - and handed it to Gemini, watching as she sliced her palm open and dripped several drops of blood onto the diamond before clenching her wounded hand into a fist.

As the blood hit the diamond, the paper glowed a creamy white. Ink started to flow onto the page, writing names in neat blue ink.

"Hm." Harry murmured, watching the ink flow across the page. "Strange. It looks a bit like a birth certificate."

"Yea. Look, there's my name, so this has to be my birth certificate. Hey do you think my parents are on here? What do you think their names are -" Gemini's voice stopped. Harry's eyes flickered to her face, taking in her sudden ashen pallor that glowed a sickening grey in the pale flashlight light. "Gemini?" He whispered.

"Harry?" Her voice was faint. Full of fear and revulsion. Her hands were trembling, shaking as she stared at the paper in her hands. "Please tell me I'm not reading that right. Please tell me I'm not."

Harry frowned and shined the light onto the page.

Then he understood.

Written next to the neat ink words that read 'parents' were the names Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange.

** Please read and review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry this took me so long to post. I'll try to type faster . . .**

**Real quick, I did not mix up the dates on when Gemini and Harry are going to Hogwarts. Gemini was born when Harry was around a year old. That means that Gemini is currently nine, as Harry is ten. Therefore, Gemini will be going into Hogwarts in two years, not one. Hope that clears that up.**

**I do not own Harry Potter.**

* * *

><p>"Please tell me I'm not reading this right. Please tell me I'm not."<p>

Gemini had always wished she had known her parents, if only so she could confront them and yell at them for leaving her, a newly-born child, sitting on the steps of an orphanage instead of taking her home and caring for her, despite the war going on. That's what she believed her parents should have done.

But this . . . this wasn't supposed to happen.

Her parents weren't supposed to be Death Eaters, psychotic followers of one of Wizarding Britain's most notorious Dark Lords. They weren't supposed to be insane, weren't supposed to be torturers and murderers who freely acknowledged their crimes with a glee that scared even the most experienced aurors.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

But, simply looking at Harry's face, at the grave expression that seemed to flicker in the flashlight's stark light as he stared at the paper in her hands, she knew that it was telling the truth.

"Oh, Merlin." Gemini whispered, swaying back and forth on her knees. "My . . . my parents . . . I . . ."

She let out a sob, her knees failing her as she crumpled to the ground, staring at the paper in her hands like it was a death sentence. She hardly felt Harry's hands steadying her, hardly felt the blood leaking from her cut hand and pooling onto the floorboards. Her world - once so steady, so understandable - was collapsing around her in the space of an instant.

She understood now - understood the blatant hatred and fear on Black's face when he had seen her, understood why he'd seemed so eager to leave, why he'd left so quickly without a word to her. She was the daughter of the Lestranges, of his insane cousins who had murdered and killed hundreds of witches and wizards. No doubt he thought she would turn out the same as her parents.

"What am I?" Gemini whispered, tears slowly starting to trail down her face.

"Gemini -" Harry began.

"Am I a killer, just like my parents?" Gemini kept going, panic and hurt rising in her chest. "Is it going to be that way? Am I going to be shunned everywhere I go, because of my parents? Am I destined to be a dark wizard? What am I supposed to be, just the child of a Death Eater, someone who's going to turn out just like their parents? I can't - I -"

She broke down, tears dripping down her cheeks and soaking into the floor. Harry was silent, holding her as she weeped. Behind his glasses, viridescent eyes gleamed with sorrow before filming over with silent wrath.

"I just . . ." Gemini whispered, swallowing back a hurt cry. "I don't want to be alone."

Several more tears seeped from her eyes.

"Gemini . . ."

Gemini looked up, eyes still burning with tears.

"Look . . ." Harry said, eyes burning with solemn conviction that few people ever see in their lifetime. "No matter what happens, as long as I'm alive, you won't be alone."

He gripped her hand tightly, blood running from the cut in her hand to pool in his own.

"We'll be family, siblings, no matter what. I promise."

Unbeknownst to the children, a silver glow rippled around their joined hands before fading away. Magic's work was done.

* * *

><p>When the two children - both fairly young, not quite old enough to have received their Hogwarts letters, possibly siblings, one of them with traces of red around her eyes and nose as she waited patiently with her suitcase - boarded the Night Bus, Stan Shunpike had his doubts about letting them board. After all, these were kids, and even if they were running away from an orphanage or abusive parents, the chances of them surviving on their own until they got their Hogwarts letters were fairly slim.<p>

He changed his mind when the older of the two - a solemn boy with flinty green eyes - pulled from his pocket a neat handful of galleons that practically glowed in the dim headlights of the bus.

Wizards - especially poor wizards, who were typically muggleborns and half-bloods - were greedy people, and the foolish ones couldn't tell the difference between a bribe and a thoughtful tip. Stan Shunpike was both greedy and foolish, and he pocketed the gold without a second thought.

The Night Bus disappeared from Emrys Orphanage with a bang, leaving behind a trail of quickly fading smoke and a purple after image that dissipated into the night fog. Ms Margaret wouldn't realize that Gemini Lestrange and Harry Potter were missing from the orphanage until she went to fetch Gemini from her room so she could go 'home' with one Sirius Black.

* * *

><p>"Why are we heading to Diagon Alley?" Gemini asked, her voice shaking slightly from the chaotic motion of the Night Bus. "I mean, sure we may need supplies, but Diagon Alley will probably be the first place someone goes looking for us."<p>

Harry drew in a breath, then hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Can I see the . . . paper we found?"

Gemini winced at the mention of the incriminating document, but rummaged through the backpack she had brought with her and pulled out the sheet of parchment. Harry looked over it for a moment before pointing to a circular indent at the bottom of the page that hadn't been there before. "Here. Press this."

As soon as Gemini's finger touched the indent, it flashed a soft green and a bronze-colored hoop formed in the indent. Gingerly, Gemini picked it up. Another flash caused a golden key with the words Vault #33 to appear on the hoop.

"That's why." Harry murmured. Despite herself, Gemini let out a brief breath of laughter.

"'Course they leave me the key to the family vault." She whispered, "Couldn't let Sirius Black attempt to seize their vault, could they? It would be so demeaning for that to happen to the Lestrange family . . ."

"It's fairly simple from here on out." Harry said, folding the paper up again and replacing it in Gemini's backpack. "We'll go to Gringotts and pick up some money from your family vault, seeing as I can't get into mine." His voice faltered for a moment, then he continued, "We'll see if there's anything we can do to hide our identities and get a home in the muggle world, and from there . . . well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Gemini looked at Harry. "You're scared, aren't you."

Harry said nothing, instead staring at the palms of his hands. His silence was an answer in itself.

Harry and Gemini entered Gringotts in silence half an hour later, after enduring the rolling, tossing nightmare that was the Night Bus. The bank was fairly empty at the time, with only a few wizards standing around that had probably just spent the night gambling. Harry approached the front desk.

"We wish to take a heritage test and visit the Lestrange Vault." He said, his voice the hard steel of a pureblood.

The goblin at the front desk looked up.

"You have your key, then?" the goblin asked. Harry gestured for Gemini to show the creature her key and she did so, holding it as if it were a venomous animal. The goblin held it between two sharp fingernails and inspected it for a moment.

"All is in order with your key. You will be taking the heritage test first, I assume?"

Harry gave a curt nod.

"Hm. This way, please."

The goblin got up from the desk as he spoke, leading Harry and Gemini down a short hallway to an empty room with another desk and several potions sitting on a table off to the side. Two chairs were in front of the desk, one of which Gemini took, while Harry remained standing, green eyes narrowed. Whether his eyes were narrowed out of suspicion or trepidation, Gemini couldn't tell.

The goblin made his way to the desk, where he removed a sheet of parchment from a drawer. This paper had a blood seal on it, this time in the shape of a circle instead of a diamond like on Gemini's birth certificate. Silently, the goblin also removed a silver knife from another drawer.

"Who is taking the heritage test?" The creature asked.

Harry tensed for a moment, steeling himself. "I am." he said.

The goblin nodded and slid the knife towards Harry. After a brief spell of doubt, Harry picked up the knife gingerly and cut his palm open, then placed his newly made cut on the seal.

A flare of white magic surrounded the blood seal after a moment, and words started to flow across the page.

"The test should be completed in a minute or so." The goblin announced. "Would you like to go to the Lestrange Vault while you wait for the test to be completed?"

"No." Gemini said, attracting both the goblin's and Harry's attention. Her cheeks turned a bit red, but she continued on, "We'll head down to the vaults after we know how many we actually have."

The goblin eyed her intently. "Very well then; we will wait for the heritage test to complete itself."

The next minute was spent in complete silence, which was eventually punctuated by the goblin's soft words of, "Interesting. I never would have guessed."

Harry glared at the goblin. "What's interesting?" he said sharply.

In reply, the goblin pushed the heritage sheet towards Harry and Gemini. The paper - written in red ink that had a disturbing resemblance to blood - read:

_Full Name:_ _Harry James Potter/Shade_

_Family:_ _Lily Evans, James Potter, Jason Potter/Gemini Shade-Lestrange_

_House Affiliations:_ _Noble House of Potter, Ancient House of Shade_

_Heir to:_ _Ancient House of Shade (if Terms of Heritage are accepted)_

Harry stared at the piece of paper in confusion. Gemini read the sheet over his shoulder and her eyes grew large. "What's the Ancient House of Shade, and how are we related to it, exactly?"

The goblin surveyed them with his yellow eyes. "The Ancient House of Shade is a house long thought extinct. It was prominent during the early 1800's, when it helped to restructure the wizarding government. It financed some of the most important businesses of the time period, and began an industrial revolution in the wizarding world. The family died off during the first World War, the events of which had leaked into the Wizarding World. Their vault, however, has been locked down for decades. The Shades, as far as our records can tell, had no living relatives. For you to be heirs of them . . . it is interesting, no doubt."

Harry looked over the paper a second time. "And the terms of heritage are . . ."

"Ah." The goblin's face darkened. "The power of the House rings - of blood - is important, as well as deadly to wizards. A wizard can only accept one Head of House ring. If a person were to attempt to claim two head of house rings, then the magics in each ring would clash. The backlash would either kill the wizard who attempted to claim them, or burn out their magical core if they are powerful enough. The Terms of Heritage prevent a witch or wizard from claiming two rings - at the price that, when they accept one ring, the generations they sire will not be able to claim any other ring than the family ring the witch or wizard chose."

"So once a witch or wizard picks a ring, they are no longer a part of the family whose ring they didn't choose." Gemini said.

"Yes."

Harry was silent for a moment, face set in stone. He flattened the heritage test against the desk, staring at it with narrowed eyes.

"How can we both be a part of the House of Shade?" he muttered. "Only one of us could claim the heir ring, which means only one of us could become a Shade."

The goblin shrugged. "The answer to your riddle is likely somewhere in the Shade's vault. In the end, it is not my concern. Either one of you accepts the heir ring, or neither of you do. As Miss Lestrange-" Gemini winced at the sound of her last name, "-already has a key to her vault and she is most likely to accept the Lestrange heir ring, then it is best that you take on the Shade heir ring."

Quiet snuck into the room and covered its occupants like a thick layer of fog. Gemini watched Harry as he traced his finger over the blood-colored ink on the paper, her breath caught in her throat.

This was a chance. A chance to escape her name. The truth of her family. To begin anew.

Harry's fingers twitched and paused over a line on the paper, and Gemini knew that he was rereading his parent's names.

Harry closed his eyes, unable to stop several tears from welling up in them.

He still had hope - hope that his parents would come for him, would take him home and raise his with his twin. Hope that he wasn't doomed to be left in the shadows. Doomed to be forgotten.

And yet. . .

He could wait. Hope against hope that his parents would return for him. That whatever gave him the Shade bloodline wouldn't take it away. That Gemini would be safe and that she would become happy with her uncle. That somehow, something could be forged from the dark flames of the past.

But even as Harry thought those words, those hopes, images flashed through his mind's eye - images of a crying Gemini fleeing down a hallway, of green light, of a simple grave that no one had cared to embellish on - and the thought faded away.

His parents had broken their promise. He had made one tonight.

He would not let them cause him to break it.

Harry suddenly relaxed, letting his arm dangle limply at his side. His right hand - still hovering over the names of James and Lily Potter - slipped towards Gemini's name.

"I'll accept the Shade heir ring." Harry murmured. Gemini took a deep breath, and inside of her she felt the stirring of hope.

* * *

><p>Sirius Black was abruptly awoken in the middle of the night by an extremely irate owl who did not understand that people needed to sleep. Not that Sirius liked sleeping in Grimmauld Place, but he did need to sleep somewhere.<p>

"Alright, alright, just hand me the letter." He finally unfastened the letter from the owl, who gave him an indignant hoot and flew off into the night.

"Damn it, it's the middle of the night, can't people wait till morning to send me a stinking owl . . ." Sirius grumbled as he opened the envelope and tossed it to the floor, not even bothering to read the address. He looked over the letter with bleary, sleep-filled eyes. As he read it, he nearly stopped breathing, and his veins seemed to fill with ice.

"Oh no . . ." he whispered in horror, dropping the letter and fleeing from the room. All thoughts of sleep were gone from his head now, replaced with panic and an old hatred that should have died long ago. Sirius grabbed his coat and headed for the fireplace, hastily grabbing a handful of floo powder. In his head, he silently congratulated himself on deciding to add his destination to his floo network.

"Emrys Orphanage!" Sirius shouted, and he was promptly engulfed in a torrent of emerald flames.

* * *

><p>Harry Potter stared at the Shade Heir Ring.<p>

The ring was a simple silver band with a picture of a raven in flight carved into the ring's seal. The Shade family motto was carved in latin around the raven.

_Malitiae valent in tenebris - _the cunning are the strongest in the shadows.

The goblin at the front desk, as if sensing Harry's next question, raised an eyebrow - an expression that, Gemini noticed, most goblins were adept at doing.

"You said that, when a person takes on a heir ring, they can change their name." Harry said softly.

"Indeed. I am assuming you wish to change yours?" the goblin asked.

"I - yes." Harry conceded.

"I would like to as well." Gemini piped up.

"I see. What would you like your new names to be?" the goblin asked, pulling out what appeared to be a register of clients and flipping through the pages.

"Well - I've always liked the name Jenna. Doesn't sound as - I don't know - fancy and pure bloody as Gemini, but it still sounds a bit like my name." Gemini said.

"Hmm. And you, Mr Potter?" the goblin inquired.

Harry said nothing for a long moment, puzzling over options in his head.

"Aeolus." He said finally, "Aeolus Shade."

The goblin nodded, taking a quill from the desk and beginning to write in the register. "Then if you will, Mr Potter . . ."

Harry Potter took the ring, studying it in the light. After a moment - a long, menacing moment - he slid the ring onto his finger.

* * *

><p>In Hogwarts, two names were crossed off of the Hogwarts Book of Registration. The disappearance of the names would not be discovered until a year later, when Minerva McGonagall was writing letters to the first years.<p>

* * *

><p>In Grimmauld Place, Gemini's name vanished from the family tapestry. Sirius Black, as he refused to look at the picture - which was why he hadn't discovered Gemini's existence earlier on in life - wouldn't notice that the girl was missing from the tapestry until much, much later on.<p>

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><p>In Potter Manor, a ten year old boy with messy black hair and brown eyes that was in bed let out a sharp scream of pain as his twin bond was mercilessly severed by the laws of magic. His parents barged in half a minute later, praying that their son - the vanquisher of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - was alright.<p>

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><p>In multiple places, the names of Harry Potter and Gemini Lestrange vanished as the heir magic did its work. From that point on, Harry Potter and Gemini Lestrange were no more.<p>

**There's Chapter 2.**

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